Perkins Coie (PDX)

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Got a great idea, but don't know where to start? Our Startup 411 workshop will provide you with: a checklist of where to get started, a review of common mistakes entrepreneurs make, an overview of startup funding options, and answers to common questions, including protecting your idea, finding co-founders, and more!

Join us for October’s installment of Confessions of an Entrepreneur, featuring Lisa Sedlar, CEO of Green Zebra Grocery.

Lisa serves as Chief Executive Officer, President and Director of Green Zebra Grocery, LLC. Lisa also served as the President of New Seasons Market, Inc. from 2005 until January 2012 and its Chief Executive Officer from 2010 until January 2012.

Lisa is a formally trained chef and has worked in retail food markets for over 20 years in positions ranging from Store Chef to Director of Purchasing to Vice President of Sales and Marketing. Ms. Sedlar serves as Member of Board of Directors of Oregon Food Bank, the Sustainable Business Network of Portland and the Portland Public Market. She also serves as Member of Business Advisory Committees of the Food Alliance and the Food Innovation Center. Ms. Sedlar is a Member of the City Club of Portland and the Portland Rotary.

This event is expected to sell out fast and space is limited. Please be sure you register as soon as possible to ensure you can attend!

Whether you're launching a new hardware startup or simply want to see your product vision come to life, you'll need some capital behind you. On May 19th, explore both sides of hardware finance from two panels of experts.

This overview workshop presented by OTBC and the Oregon Entrepreneurs Network is an overview of how to start, common mistakes to avoid, and an introduction to startup funding. Included Tools: Startup Checklist; Oregon Entrepreneur Resources Directory.

"I have an idea for a startup but where do I start?" - A common question amongst first time entrepreneurs. One thing we know, Oregon has a wealth of information and support for entrepreneurs. This workshop held jointly by OEN and OTBC, will bring together all of those resources along with providing a check list of steps to take before building your plan.

Takeaways
Checklist of where to get started
Review of common mistakes entrepreneurs make and how to avoid them
Overview of startup funding options (and realities)
Overview of resources available to entrepreneurs
Answers to some of the basic questions that always come up about protecting your idea, co-founders, etc.

Session Leader: Steve Morris, Executive Director of OTBC
Steve Morris is the Executive Director of OTBC and the Managing Director of OregonStartups.com. He is a veteran of three start-ups, and has more than 25 years of management experience in the software, service, and semiconductor test industries at companies such as Hewlett Packard, Integrated Measurement Systems, Cadence Design Systems, Mentor Graphics, Credence Corporation and Teseda Corporation. He holds a B.A. in mathematics from Reed College and a Masters of Science degree from Carnegie-Mellon University Graduate School of Industrial Administration (now The Tepper School of Business).

PDX11 is proud to welcome Richard Lazar, CEO of RDI Labs and serial entrepreneur to lead Roundtable #3 – Strategic Planning for Startups!

On Tuesday, April 17th from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m, we will hold our third of the 2012 PDX11 Roundtable Series. This session’s topic is “Strategic Planning for Startups” – a firsthand exploration of fundamentally important areas of focus when planning your startup's success
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This Roundtable will be hosted by Perkins Coie. Doors will be open at 5:00 p.m. for pre-discussion networking, and we will start promptly at 5:30 p.m.

Areas we’ll be exploring are:

• Great idea . . . but does the product really solve a big enough problem? (the problem/solution dynamic and the size and scope the market opportunity)

• How will the company make money, or not? (business and revenue models; sales and marketing)

• How much operating capital is needed and where should it come from? (fundraising)

• Who will launch the enterprise and how will the pie be divided? (founding and early team)

• What type of entity should be formed? (legal entity type)

• Where is the off-ramp and how does the company get there? (exit strategy)

The Portland startup scene is full of activity, talent, and new concepts – if you’ve got these but need a candid, firsthand roadmap on applying solid strategy to your business idea, this Roundtable’s for you. Refreshments will be served, and there are a limited number of seats. Please RSVP to Tamsen Galloway to reserve a spot at the roundtable. Details will be listed at www.calagator.org.

About the PDX11 Roundtable Series:

The PDX11 Roundtable Series is an answer to the startup community’s request for a roundtable-style, firsthand interaction with software leaders who have expertise in specific topics. These will be held on a regular basis throughout the year.
For more information about the PDX11 Network, please visit www.pdx11.org

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is much more than just inserting keywords into your title tags. These days you need to go beyond the tags and ensure that your design and development of your site is search engine friendly. Learn 11 actionable SEO tactics that will cover optimizing your site backend, site copy, site assets, inbound links, and social signals. This is not just for geeks – marketers or those that are in charge of creating content and marketing it on search engines and social media sites are more than welcomed!

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is much more than just inserting keywords into your title tags. These days you need to go beyond the tags and ensure that your design and development of your site is search engine friendly. Learn 11 actionable SEO tactics that will cover optimizing your site backend, site copy, site assets, inbound links, and social signals. This is not just for geeks – marketers or those that are in charge of creating content and marketing it on search engines and social media sites are more than welcomed!

One of the critical decisions for any start-up CEO is the transition of the sales responsibility from the founding team to a hired sales staff. Several key elements to that decision are when to make the first hire, how quickly to build the sales team, target hiring characteristics, compensation, and performance management. The Sales Learning Curve was developed by Mark Leslie, retired founder, chairman and CEO of Veritas Software and current lecturer at Stanford Business School, and Charles Holloway, Professor at Stanford Business School. Our discussion of the Sales Learning Curve will provide start up CEO’s a framework for dealing with all of those key decision elements.

Speaker: Kermit Yensen
The workshop will lead by Kermit Yensen. Kermit is currently a partner with Altus Alliance, a venture consulting firm focused on helping emerging companies achieve revenue traction. Kermit’s background includes eight years as the CEO of Massini Group, a B2B database marketing business, 5 years as the Vice-President, WW Marketing with Tektronix Measurement Business Unit, and 11 years in product marketing for Hewlett-Packard.

This event is part one of a five-part series, chaired and moderated this year by Sudhir Bhagwan. It is aimed at providing informative and interactive advice to Gazelle CEOs whose companies have achieved revenues of between $3M - $30M annually.

The OEN Running with the Gazelles CEO Forum offers attendees two topic discussions each session. The first session in the five part series will be on the following topics:

Building and Managing Your Team and Board of Directors

Led by William W. Lattin, Ph.D., this session offers a complete discussion of the issues in building an Executive team and a Board of Directors that can help a small or larger company CEO meet the challenges of today’s market environment and face the risk of economic uncertainties.

This session is for CEOs and or members of the Exec team, or members of the Board. They will take away real world experience of what to watch for and how to manage these difficult situations.

How to Cost-Effectively and Dramatically Grow Your Company

Led by Mark Paul, this session will help CEOs address how to grow their company in today’s economic climate, and cultivate new customers. This session will also cover cost-effective methods and will highlight how a strategic process helped a $3 million/year company boost the value of four acquisition offers for one million dollars – to nearly $20 million, in six months.

This session discusses how to take a strategic view to dramatically grow a company, how a CEO can quickly implement methods others have successfully used to attract more customers, and understand what works best.

Raising equity capital can be a daunting task for entrepreneurs. OEN is proud to offer a workshop that provides entrepreneurs who are planning to try and raise capital from Angel Investors, an overview on what it takes to prepare.

The workshop covers a road map of how to improve your investor readiness. Topics will include:
• Who is an Angel Investor - and what motivates them to invest.
• Understanding Angel Investor realities.
• Where to find Angels.
• Investor readiness and preparation
• The Due Diligence process.
• Criteria of an ideal Angel Deal.

Dennis Powers, Cornerstone Management Resources
Mr. Powers is the Managing Partner of Cornerstone Management Resources and has over 35 years experience in technology ventures. He has been an officer and/or director in a number of companies that have successfully gone from early formation to successful exits. He has experience on several boards of directors, is an active angel investor, and volunteer in the entrepreneurial community.

So, you are ready to start hiring. Is that an independent contractor or an employee? What are the legal compliance issues you need to consider? What essential processes and policies do you need to have in place? The presentation will cover the employment law basics in hiring employees and other contract workers.

Speaker: Renee Starr
Renee Starr is a solo employment lawyer who focuses her practice on advising and defending employers in all aspects of employment law. Before becoming a lawyer, Renee started her career in human resources, and currently maintains certifications as a Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) and a Global Professional in Human Resources (GPHR)

Please join us for an Informational Session regarding investing in OEN's Angel Oregon. We're gearing up for our 2011 kickoff! We will be hosting an information session for new and returning Angel Oregon investors on December 1 from 5-6:30 at Perkins Coie.

Come learn about the program. Find out why, to many young entrepreneurial companies, Angel Oregon is nothing short of heaven-sent. This event gives emerging businesses excellent visibility and a chance to win serious investment dollars by bringing together Oregon and Southwest Washington's brightest entrepreneurial talent with accredited angel investors.

Inspiration is a new series of events presented by TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs)Oregon that will focus on the bedrock of all entrepreneurial endeavors. Successful entrepreneurship requires several elements - inspiration, innovation and if you are focused on the outcome - sound business strategy. However, this series will focus on the creativity that drives the process - the journey, not the destination.

This event will feature two inspired engineers, Ward Cunningham, CTO of AboutUs.org and the engineer who pioneered the technology behind Wikipedia and came up with the term "Wiki", and Matt Tucker, CTO and co-founder of Jive Software. Ward will talk about the inspiration behind the Wiki technology, his journey through its growth and the future of Wikipedia. Matt will discuss collaboration software

The OEN Gazelle Peer-to-Peer Group brings together CEOs of growing companies in a trusting environment where they can share the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. This learning and support group will meet quarterly. The focus will be you, the entrepreneur, sharing real life successes, challenges and failures. Through an established protocol, participants can discuss points of pain they are facing, and tap into this support group to safely discuss business and personal growth issues.

The OEN Gazelle program will also provide the connection between this group of emerging entrepreneurial CEOs and established CEO mentors, providing all participants a personal board of advisors.

Who can attend?
This group is limited to only CEOs of growth companies with revenue greater than $3M and less than $50M. Registration list will be reviewed to ensure all registrants meet qualifications.

This event is the second part of the 2 part "Entrepreneurship Program" series. The program aims to educate entrepreneurs about various growth, capitalization and liquidity options they need to be aware of when they start a company.

In Guide to Successful Entrepreneurship - Part 2 the panel will be focused on folks who bootstrapped their startups and now run very successful companies.

Our 2 panelists are:
Ryan Buchanan, CEO eROI, an interactive agency, focused on helping our clients establish and enhance their online presence.
Taizoon Doctor , CEO Xovix
All the panelists have a tremendous track record and attendees will gain valuable information on the fundamentals of building and exiting a successful business.

This five-week educational series is designed to offer entrepreneurs access to industry professionals via interactive and engaging sessions. Space is limited to the first 20 attendees to register. Seasoned industry professionals will conduct a two-hour session focused on a specific topic (see above). The session will include a prepared presentation on the topic, with plenty of time set aside for interaction between the attendees.

When: Every Tuesday, starting April 6 and concluding May 4, from 7:30am to 9:30am

Parking: No validation of parking will be granted. Perkins Coie’s offices are located in the Brewery Block section of the Pearl District. The office is one block from the street car and both garage and street parking are available.

Pricing: $195 for OEN members for the entire 5-week Executive Series; $325 for non-members (includes a one-year individual OEN membership)

In this first of a 2 part series, three entrepreneurs will share their experiences in how they were able to grow and successfully sell their business, thereby providing positive outcomes for themselves as well as their investors.
Our 3 panelists are :
- Sudhir Bhagwan, Local Angel Investor & CEO Snap Names (2005-2008), a company that provided the first commercially available technology for "back-ordering" a currently registered domain name.
- Nitin Khanna , CEO M&A Forum & past founder & Chairman of Saber Corporation, one of the largest provider of state government solutions in the country
- Matt Compton , Venture Partner at Madrona Venture Group, and ex-VP Media and Strategic Partnerships at Yahoo
All three panelists have a tremendous track record and attendees will gain valuable information on the fundamentals of building and exiting a successful business.

Panel to be moderated by Brentley Bullock, Partner at Perkins Coie and a Charter Member at TiE Oregon.

Business leaders need to be exposed to the latest trends, as well as core business ideologies. So, OEN has developed the 2009 Executive Series curriculum to provide entrepreneurs with the skills and knowledge to make critical business decisions. This four-week educational series is designed to offer entrepreneurs access to industry professionals via interactive and engaging sessions. We will assist you in building companies that are attractive to investors, customers, partners and employees via a series of focused, interactive educational sessions.
Session I – Sales and Marketing - Presented by Bill Etheredge, WCE Consulting
Session II – Understanding Cap Table Dynamics - Presented by Brent Bullock, Perkins Coie
Session III – Understanding Financial Statements - Presented by Jared Holum, Perkins & Co.
Session IV - Ask the Expert Panel

Dates and Times: October 6, 13, 20 and 27, 7:30 am – 9:30 am
Location: Perkins Coie, 1120 N.W. Couch Street, Tenth Floor, Portland, OR 97209-4128. Parking in building garage will be validated.
Cost: The course is $200 for OEN members for the entire Executive Series and $325 for non-members (includes a one year individual membership), and is available for a maximum of 20 participants.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was signed into law earlier this year with substantial funding for cleantech companies. The Recovery Act created new funding opportunities and increased funding for many existing programs.
Join us on Sept 23rd, for a discussion with William Malley, Perkins Coie's lead partner in Washington DC on how to access competitively awarded funding under the Recovery Act and other laws.

If you are a startup or an entrepreneur, and you want to understand how to access federal grants, loans, and loan guarantees, this event is for you.

Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the U.S. Department of Energy will be awarding billions of dollars in grants, loans and loan guarantees to promote renewable energy and energy efficiency. The competition for these funds has already begun. Some application deadlines are rapidly approaching. For companies interested in seeking these funds, the time to act is now.

In this seminar, we will provide practical tips on how to approach the U.S. Department of Energy’s application process. Topics covered in the seminar will include:

Tracking funding opportunities
Determining which opportunities best fit your business
Preparing a compelling and complete application
Preserving the confidentiality of sensitive business information
Minimizing delays in the application process
Understanding the ‘strings’ attached to federal funding

We hope that you or a colleague will be able to join us. For more information on our Federal Grants & Loans practice, please visit our Web site.

The smart grid has become a rapidly growing movement to design and implement the concept of an intelligent energy system that is more efficient, robust, flexible and sustainable.

Join our distinguished panel to gain a basic understanding of how the systems we use for electric energy generation, distribution and consumption are evolving to better meet the needs of society and entrepreneurial opportunities available.

Roger Hicks - What is the smart grid and why should we care? An introduction to the smart grid concept along with a summary of problems it will address and some business opportunity examples in the emerging clean energy marketplace.

We begin the new year with our Clean energy SIG meeting. The agenda for the evening includes a presentation by Ms. Lacey Riddle, Focus Oregon Organizer for Focus The Nation who will present a project based on proven solar thermal techniques- The SunnySide Neighbourhood Project Overview.

Sunnyside Neighborhood Project Overview

Sunnyside Neighborhood Energy (SunNE) is conceived as a comprehensive solution to local thermal energy needs. SunNE is a project of Northwest Neighborhood Energy (N2E), a new non-profit incorporated in Oregon. SunNE will eventually be structured as a community-owned district energy (DE) utility powered by renewable sources that will serve Sunnyside Environmental School and the surrounding historic neighborhood and commercial areas. The project is modeled on existing mid-sized DE utilities in Sweden, Denmark and Canada, which use solar thermal storage and biofuel boilers to provide thermal energy for detached single-family homes, multi-family residential and small commercial buildings. Adapting these successful international examples for implementation in Oregon gives us a scalable, replicable model whose economic and environmental impact will be tremendous.

Planned system components include thermal solar collectors, mass thermal storage for heating and anticipated cooling, combining water to water and ground-coupled heat pump technology, waste heat recovery, PV arrays and biofuel boilers for boosting and back-up. A distribution system of hydronic insulated pipes will deliver hot and chilled water for space heating, cooling and domestic hot water to the school, several hundred nearby residences, and commercial buildings. SunNE will operate as a member-owned, unregulated franchise utility within the City of Portland.